Messages on the weekly Torah Portion, Jewish Holidays, and other Torah topics, by Rabbi Yerachmiel Seplowitz. "Anyone can read verses from the 'Bible'; it is only with the insights of the Talmud and traditional Jewish Commentaries that one is able to learn TORAH."

A fellow came up to me in Shul recently and asked, “Why is it so hard to pray with feeling?”

… I studied at a Yeshiva in Israel for six years. Then I left Israel, not to return for twenty years. Ten years ago, I went back…

I went to the Kotel. The Western Wall, the sole remnant of a magnificent Temple of G-d that the Romans destroyed two thousand years ago; a Temple that we pray every day to see rebuilt. A Temple over which our People have shed millions of tears for thousands of years.

As Jewish Law requires, I tore my shirt the same way a mourner does at the funeral of a loved one. I stood there at the ruins of our Temple in my torn shirt looking like a mourner. But you know what? Deep down, I didn’t FEEL like a mourner!

I couldn’t understand it. At the Tombs of our Patriarchs and Matriarchs I was overcome with emotion. Why was the site of our destroyed Temple different?

I’m a religious Jew. I pray every day for the Messiah to come and for the Temple to be rebuilt. I fast every Tisha B’Av, and join my People in mourning for the Temple. Why did I not feel the same, deep emotions that I felt at those other places?